Customer Reviews

Toro 10-Inch 24-Volt Cordless Trimmer 51465

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is my first battery-powered weedeater after owning several disappointing gas trimmers. The Toro trimmer has definitely been designed to rid the world of those gas powered problem-ridden dinosaurs.

The trimmer itself is 24 volt, therefore it is not the lightest of the battery selection...but I found it to be comparable in weight to a lightweight gas powered model. It does have a strap which can carry the weight on your shoulder.

The dual handle feature is nice when wanting to edge, the trimmer does not strain your hand or arm when either trimming or edging with this handle feature.

It comes supplied with a small diameter trimmer string, which I plan to replace with something a little more substantial. It is OK for grass trimming, but when edging you do need a larger diameter to handle the stress. The bump head works well with this model, if you feed out too much a blade trims the excess off.

I no longer have to mess with mixing oil and gas and pulling on a string. Simply pull the trigger and you are trimming, the sooner I can start...the sooner I can get back to the important things. Weedeating is not one of those.

The charger is also a nice feature; it mounts to a wall, which serves as the storage rack for the unit.

Give this trimmer a good look when researching, most competitors out there right now only offer 12V, this is a 24V!

THE GOOD: Strong battery. Good run-time. Nice charger/storage setup. Attractive design.

THE BAD: Heavy, clunky, badly balanced, unwieldy. Trigger switch requires constant, very heavy pressure.

THE UGLY: The line breaks . . .and breaks . . . and breaks! And-every two or three minutes--it breaks inside the spool, requiring a clumsy removal of the spool cover and re-installing the line. Then it breaks again.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Prompt, courteous, but completely unable to help-except to suggest "soaking the line overnight."

THE FIX: The only way I could get the thing to work acceptably was to ignore Toro's instructions and to install a carefully wound .080 "professional quality" line. It doesn't make the machine any more elegant to use, but at least it works.

If you buy this trimmer, good luck!

Look, I dunno about any spool head probs or easy breaking line that I've read below - my use has been just fine in that regard. In fact, product is just fine in almost all regards. Its powerful (for my use at least - as avg. homeowner), the tap-to-extend-line is new to me from my old trimmer and works well in my opinion, the 8" vs 10" feature seems fine by me too - the 8" length (who cares if its actual 8 or 5 or 11 or etc.) keeps the line inside inside the secondary guard for sensitive trimming or for edging. Yes its heavy, but the shoulder strap helps to balance that. Yes its powerful, at least as well as the previous consumer grade electric trimmer this replaces, yes it holds a charge well (my trimming is maybe 2 hours for the whole kit-and-kaboodle).

the only problem? the ... trigger! geez, who ever designed this trigger needs to be fired. I'm a strong guy and don't find the trimmer too heavy or unwieldly (though some may), but the trigger made me stop several times to rest! yes, the trigger! it KILLS your thumb. first, some genius put a tirgger lock on the thing so you have to depress a safety switch at same time you depress trigger. Then, if you even slightly let go of the trigger, the safety lock kicks back in and kills the thing! and there's no full-lock-on I could find. So, you either have to keep trigger fully depressed at all times (by really squeezing), or you gotta keep usign that safety switch with your thumb. I'm still happy, and wouldn;t change it, but god its a really dumb thing for them to do. try it, you'll see.......

(also, i read somewhere its a lead hydride battery (or whatever) and not the NiMH battery often found in cell phones, etc. Thus, I think common wisdom holds you should fully discharge the battery before recharging since they have a "memory effect".)

good luck

I bought this trimmer because of the 24 volt rating. Unfortunately, 24 volts doesn't make up for the overall poor design of the tool. This trimmer is so long that I have to keep my elbows bent when I'm using it and I'm 6'3" tall. This is very fatiguing since the unit weighs almost 13 pounds. The motor is powerful, so why did they use .065" string on it? The string appears to be a cheap grade and doesn't hold up well when trimming. You might as well not even try to edge with it. The changeable string length seems like a neat feature at first, but I'm not sure why I'd want to trim 8" in stead of 10". The instructions weren't very helpful in this regard either.

Pros:
Powerful, string seems to turn at very high speed.

Cons:
String is too small for heavy trimming or edging.
Trimmer is extremely heavy.
Difficult to assemble guard.
Awkward to hold.

I'm in agreement with the others who are unhappy with this unit. It's heavy, the strap is inadequate, and the amount of hand power required to depress the trigger and safety is ridiculous. After 15 minutes of use, I can barely manage 30 seconds of on time (male, 36 years old, no degenerative skeletal or muscular problems.) The line does break frequently. It won't take down weeds with stems bigger than pencils. Since I own it already and my yard is small I'll probably disable the trigger safety and rewind the core with heavier line, warrantee be damned. Would not buy again, would not recommend.

This is a good quality, easy to assemble trimmer. Althought the unit is quite heavy it has a nice balance & feel. The motor has adaquate power for most light to medium grass. The trimmer line thickness is the major weakness of this unit, it is .065 & breaks quite often. Athought the bump & feed head works well it is a pain to advance line all the time. If you have light grass to edge & a small area I would recommend the unit. If you have heavy grass & weeds or a larger yard I would highly recommend you invest...in a good quality gas trimmer(echo, John Deere, toro). Even the smallest 21cc gas models have LOTS more power & a much more substantial trim head & line.

This has got to be the worst invention by TORO ever made. I bought this to replace another battery powered weedeater a RYOBI, I should have just bought another one of them, which is What I will do after this one is returned. EVERYTHING that you read BAD about this in all the reviews is TRUE and then some. In the first 10 second of using this I realized I made a very very bad purchase. too HEAVY string BREAKS........... trigger is a hassle I could go on and on but won't Take my word for it DON'T BUY IT!!!!!!!!!

Don't understand the reviews below. The "trigger" reqires very little force. It's a little heavy, but it's battery powered. My 5'0" tall 95lbs wife uses it and has no problems. I would highly recommend product.

This is my first trimmer. It seems to have enough power to get the job done. The trimmer has never run down on any of my trimming tasks (~45 Mins). I agree that the line breaks easily. The bump line feed works well. I also agree that it would be nice if the trimmer had a trigger lock. After mowing the yard and other lawn care tasks, my hand and arm get tired and if you relax your grip, the trimmer will stop. The dual trigger feature is great for lawn edging. The battery charger also serves as a hanger. According to the owners manual, the trimmer can be left on the charger when not in use. Overall I'm happy with the trimmer and it is a great price.

Being the unhappy owner of a Toro snowthrower I should have known better, but I was seduced by the other reviews and the 24 volt feature. What a mistake ! Yes, it assembles relatively easily, and yes, the 24 volt power is impressive. But the heart of a trimmer is the trimmer head, and this one simply doesn;t work well. In the first 20 minutes of operation, the string retracted inside the head 4 times, causing me to have to stop, unscrew the head, rethread the string and re-assemble. And the automatic string trim 'blade' (and I use the term loosely, because that is one dull blade) doesn't so much cut the string as splinter it, rendering it very ineffective. The trimmer guard effectively prevents the string from hitting anything in front of the trimmer at all - so if you're trying to trim grass around a set of steps or tight to any other obstacle, you can't. If I had it to do over - I wouldn't. In my opinion, this is a poorly engineered product.